Vampire Apocalypse (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles #3) (9 page)

Luke nodded. “We have to. Getting into
New Orleans is not going to be easy, though. All of the cities are
guarded.”

I hadn’t thought about that
part. What I
had
thought about was that if it was bad here, it had to be worse
in New Orleans. Vampires there just walked around out in the open
all the time, even before the attacks began.

“
I also think it might be
better if we do not tell The Board about this,” Luke
added.

Suddenly there was a heavy silence
that hung heavy in the room. No one seemed to know what to say. I
know I didn’t. Luke wasn’t really a member of The Board
anymore—they had pretty much booted him off for endorsing our
infiltration of the Talon Building—but he was still a Hunter and he
almost always went to them with important information. I guess he
was more peeved about them not backing him with the Talon Building
than I thought he was.

Drew was the first to speak up. “All
right. It’s just us then.”

That was the downside to not telling
The Board, we wouldn’t have any backup. I had a feeling that this
trip to New Orleans was going to be one place we were actually
going to need it, but at the same time I knew that collectively we
were a force to be reckoned with. I had several superior skills,
including my fire power, we had several trained Hunters, Gavin had
his water power, Alice rocked a sword, Christina handled knives
like they weren’t deadly weapons, Oscar was a siren who could
compel people with the sound of his voice, and Zander was just a
badass who liked to kill vampires.

I had faith in us, but that didn’t
mean that some extra Hunters wouldn’t have made this job a whole
lot easier. “I’m game. But I had an idea today, to keep people safe
while we go to New Orleans and try to fix this.”

It looked like everyone was still
taking in the whole bloodline ordeal. My group of friends usually
had a lot more to say. I was especially surprised that Christina
hadn’t been shooting off smarty pants comments the whole time. Even
Drew and Gavin weren’t bickering like they usually did.

“
What do ya got?” Christina
gave her knife a final flip and sheathed it before hopping onto
Zander’s lap.

“
I know that this might be
an inconvenience to The Board and the Hunters, but it would keep
people safe.”

Luke leaned forward, his curiosity
piqued.

“
I want to get a couple of
buses and gather up the survivors from the city who haven’t pledged
to the Vampire Council yet. Arcadia Falls is safe and I want to
take them there.”

Silence followed. I shifted
uncomfortably because I didn’t know what everyone thought of the
idea. Sure, it would give away the secret of the community, but we
could save a lot of people.

“
It’s genius,” Luke
whispered. “My granddaughter is a genius.”

“
I wouldn’t go that far,” I
mumbled.

Finally, people started talking. Drew
reached over and squeezed my leg. “I don’t know why we didn’t think
of this before.”

“
Because we thought that we
would be taking the barrier down,” Alice pointed out. “What would
be the use of sending them there if the protection wasn’t going to
remain around the community?”

I continued with my train of thought,
“If we cleared out the old gym, we could put up cots in the
building and use it as a shelter.”

Oscar, who had been quiet most of the
time, adjusted his body on the couch. “If we do this, we are going
to need to find supplies, too. A lot of supplies. Feeding all those
people is going to be pretty hard. Plus, you will need cots and
blankets. All of that is what we will need … at the very
least.”

Luke stood. “I’ll run it by The Board
right now.” He left the room to go contact whoever he needed to
call. The Board members might not sanction a trip to New Orleans to
find the head of a few vampire bloodlines, but this was something
they would probably go for. A Hunter’s mission in life was to
protect the human race from vampires by eradicating them from the
world. In this case we could protect a lot of humans and they would
probably be on board with that.

Luke was on the phone for a while, I
assume with several different people. He came back after a little
while sporting a satisfied grin. “They’ll do it.”

“
Yes!” I executed a fist
pump. “Let’s save some people from those blood suckers!”

Luke chuckled and held up his hand.
“They are spreading the word through the community and starting
preparations immediately. If we are going to pull this off, it has
to be in broad daylight, when it’s safest. For now we just need to
worry about getting people there. They will take care of the
details.”

“
Sweet.” I looked to the
group. “You guys up for this?”

There was a chorus of all kinds of
positive responses while everyone got moving. I hurried to the hall
closet and flung open the double doors. Yet another arsenal greeted
me. I ran my eyes over all of the weapons and ammunition, then
selected a box of UV shells for my gun.

I turned over the closet to Alice and
Oscar before hurrying to my room so I could get my weapons
on.

Excitement about what we were going to
do made me giddy. I couldn’t help it, it was so rare that anything
good happened lately. I wanted to savor the feeling. I strapped on
my weapons as fast as I could, grabbed my bow, and headed out the
door.

This was going to be
awesome.

~~***~~

We locked up the house securely and
all of us crammed into the Escalade to head into the city.
Normally, we never left the house unattended—we always had someone
stay behind to run the security system and keep watch while we were
gone—but no one wanted to stay behind for this mission. Plus, we
figured as long as we got it finished while it was still light out,
everything should be fine.

We headed straight for the high school
in hopes that we could find a couple of buses there. Luckily, we
picked the right school because there were two buses parked behind
the school in a gated in lot. I burned the lock off of the gate and
let our SUV pass through. Running behind them, I drew my gun before
prying one of the bus doors open.

After I was on the bus, I walked the
aisle and cleared every seat to make sure there weren’t any
vampires hiding out for the day. Once I was sure it was clean, I
poked my head out the door. “It’s clear!”

Christina and Zander climbed the steps
up onto the bus with me, and Zander immediately checked the
ignition. “We’re going to have to hotwire it.”

“
Do you know how to do
that?”

He spread his hands wide. “I’m a man
of many trades.”

I rolled my eyes. “I wouldn’t call
knowing how to hotwire a vehicle a trade.”

“
Call it what you will.” He
shrugged and sat down in the driver’s seat, then reached under the
bulky dashboard, feeling for wires. “Honestly, though, I’ve never
hotwired a bus, but I don’t see it being much different than a
car.”

“
I’m sure it’s not,”
Christina mumbled just as the bus shuddered and roared to
life.

“
Piece of cake,” Zander
told me as he stood up. “I better go help with the other bus now.
Who’s going to drive this thing?”

Christina smoothed down the red,
oversized tank that she had on over a pair of black skinny jeans.
“I think Drew is going to drive this one and Luke is going to drive
the other,” she answered.

I nodded. “Sweet.”

In less than ten minutes we were
divided up and pulling the buses out onto the streets. Drew joined
me and took the wheel. Surprisingly, Gavin hurried up the steps and
sat down in the seat right behind Drew, greeting us with, “Hey,
guys, I’m with you.”

“
Really?” Drew
muttered.

I took the seat across the aisle from
Gavin, closest to the door. “Shhh,” I scolded Drew, “we’re on a
mission. Save that for another time.”

Christina and Zander stayed on the bus
Luke was driving, and Alice took over the wheel of the Escalade, so
of course Oscar stayed with her.

We only went a few blocks before we
started seeing survivors. The scared humans scattered and hid when
they saw the big yellow buses roll up. It was one thing to see cars
out in the city, but no one used buses anymore.

Drew stopped in the middle of the
street and put the bus in park. A loud hiss sounded as he reached
over and pulled the lever to open the door. “Ready?” he
asked.

“
Totally,” I answered.
“Let’s do this.”

Gavin simply nodded and we stepped
down off the bus into the street.

The others were descending, and Alice
had parked the Escalade behind the second bus. I watched Alice get
out from behind the wheel. The harsh summer sun beat down on us
brutally, but it glinted off her hair when she reached up and
re-did her ponytail. Oscar stepped down from the passenger side and
gazed over the top of the SUV to where she stood. He stared at her
for less than a minute while she finished with her hair. She was
oblivious to the look, but I saw it and it made me happy that she
had someone who loved her. Well, someone who loved her and didn’t
want to drink her blood.

Suddenly, her head snapped toward him
and she realized he had been staring at her. She flashed him a
playful smile and slid her short swords into the sheaths crossed at
her back.

Focus, Chloe,
focus.

“
I guess I’ll try and get
them to come out … let them know what we’re doing here.”

“
Good idea,” Luke agreed. I
glanced over at Drew and he nodded agreement as well.

“
All right.” I made sure my
bow was in a good position. “Here goes nothing.” I jogged away from
the buses until I had a good distance between myself and them.
Then, I sprinted back toward the first bus, pushing off when I knew
the time was right. I leapt up into the air, hoping I had gauged
the distance correctly. I brought my feet up and tucked them under
me until I was directly above the roof of the bus.

I landed on one knee with the other
bent in front of me. Thank God I made that landing; it would have
totally sucked if I had overshot it or not gotten close enough. I
stood and turned a circle. Hiding behind the corners of buildings
and behind cars, I could see curious eyes peering out at me,
wondering why we were here.

“
Don’t be afraid. We are
friends,” I shouted, hopefully loud enough for them all to hear.
“We are here to help you. If you want help, we can take you to a
safe place where the vampires can’t go.”

Nothing. Silence.

The eyes were still staring
at me. The ones that I couldn’t actually see, I could
feel
. The group all
stared up at me, every one of them squinting against the sun and
smiling up with reassurance. “Um … Do you see us here?” I swept my
hand across the general area of where the group stood. “We are
Hunters. We know how to kill the vampires, and we know how to stay
safe. You have to trust me, but if you are going to come with us
you have to choose to do so now so we can get you out of here
before nightfall.”

Again, I moved my gaze across the
cluttered streets. Why didn’t any of them come out? It never really
occurred to me that we would have to talk the survivors into
joining us. I assumed that they would be so thankful that they
would all run on to the buses.

Then, I finally saw a man step out
from behind a truck. He wore jeans and a dirty beige T-shirt. His
hair was dark brown but had a bit of gray streaked throughout it.
He looked exhausted and malnourished. “You can really take us to a
place where the vampires can’t go?” He shaded his eyes and looked
up me.

“
Yes, we can,” I called
down to him.

“
Then I want to go, my … my
family needs safety.”

“
You and your family are
more than welcome to come with us. Get them and get on the
bus.”

Luke approached the man and appeared
to be talking to him. I turned on my super hearing and heard Luke
telling him that we didn’t have time for them to go back to their
home for personal items.

“
I’m sorry, but there
simply isn’t time to wait. You will be provided necessities when
you arrive,” Luke tried to reassure the man.

The guy appeared to weigh the options
between going to a safe place with none of their personal items and
facing off with vampires every night. Should be no contest there,
right?

Finally, he turned and waved back in
the direction of where he had originally come from. “Come on,
Amber.” Not long after, a blonde woman dressed in jeans and a light
blue button up shirt emerged from behind the truck. She held a baby
girl in her arms. I couldn’t tell how old she was, but definitely
less than a year. Another little girl was clinging to Amber’s leg.
The little girl had blonde curls like her mother, and appeared to
be about five years old. Not that I knew all that much about
children or how old they looked.

Luke beckoned to them. “Come on, no
need to be scared. None of us will hurt you, it’s our job to
protect you.”